Unifying Science and Spirituality

Post navigation

The Ideology of Massacre

Prior to 9/11, the most destructive terrorist attack in America was the bombing of the Murrah Building in 1995. One-third of the nine-story building was destroyed, and casualties were concentrated in the day-care center on the first floor.

The perpetrators of the attack, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were motivated in part by the actions of the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas. Both incidents involved compounds led by apocalyptic leaders that believed the government was a tyrannical conspiracy. Disaster evolved when normal law-enforcement procedures were initiated against paranoiacs that resisted contact with the outside world. Their possession of gun arsenals was a particular problem.

Where most might have seen government missteps as indicating problems in practice in dealing with a new sub-culture predisposed to violence, the separatist militia movement saw things differently. Propagandized by Reagan’s “government has a boot on your neck” rhetoric and Gingrich’s anti-government messaging, the two incidents in jurisdictions a thousand miles apart were taken as proof of tyranny. Buoyed by this political rhetoric, McVeigh and Nichols saw themselves as freedom fighters, exercising their Second Amendment rights to strike a blow against the ATF agents housed in the Murrah Building.

Gingrich never recognized this connection, because his strategy had much narrower political motivations: attain Republican control of a Congress that had been dominated by Democrats since the New Deal. Rather than deal with specific issues, Gingrich attacked the government as a whole, indicting the Democrats by association. The reverence in which Gingrich is held by the movement reflects the continuing effectiveness of that political strategy: smearing government and blaming Democrats for all of its defects.

It’s the smearing government part that relates to mass murder in our public schools. To a young adult, a public school is the only governmental agency they interact with. When bureaucratic procedures fail to protect students from abuse (as in Columbine) or impose sanctions for paranoid aggression (Parkland), to justify mayhem the affected parties have only to make the same step made by McVeigh and Nichols.

What needs to be understood is that the National Rifle Association and Second Amendment zealots in the Republican Party advocate openly for that step. They characterize gun ownership as an essential element in maintaining a free society, a characterization that makes sense only if guns are actually used by individuals in resisting authority. It is this logic that requires the provision of military-style weaponry to the public, which when turned on unarmed civilians results in heartbreaking trauma.

So for Gov. Scott in Florida and others to assert that these incidents are reflections of “pure evil” should be seen as a self-indictment. These incidents reflect people doing what you tell them they should do, against a government that is incapable of controlling the dangers that your rhetoric incites.

The Wistia platform includes many value-added features if you are interested in running a course. That was my original intention, and I may get back to it at some point. But as a video hosting site it is overkill. YouTube has some advantages as a platform in that it has an active viewership, and will link related material.

WordPress isn’t ideal for a site like Love Returns that is fixed content. To channel readership, I need to continually post. Unfortunately, what I’ve found here at everdeepening is that few readers go back to the beginning material (although I have a reader from the Philippines that did that), or even browse through the post in my topic pages. It’s often treated as a form of social media, rather than a way to engage with original ideas. So Love Returns may be orphaned unless I find another avenue to channel people to it.

There’s kind of a quid-pro-quo out here on WordPress with following, and I think that most “successful” bloggers follow far more sites than they actually read. I never had that inclination, and as I’ve added school half-time to my work schedule, now it’s just impossible to spend as much time out here as is required to build a readership.

Of course, you have advantages that I don’t – your story is relatable. Mine tends to go out into places that most people never encounter in their daily lives. So your experience may differ from mine.

Finally – this has wandered a little off-topic. I hope you don’t mind if I trim the dialog down to the focus of the OP (original post). Let me know if you need anything preserved on the topic of videos and blogging, and I’ll paste it into a comment on your home page.

This is a remedial question i’m sure but how do I put another link on my sidebar? I have one set already to my jewelry website but wanted to have the other go to my writing website. I’m sure it’s probably something ridiculous like my having to change themes, but you seem to be way more advanced in technology than I am. What are you going back to school for?